Winter Leaving
by Shadarii
Summary: There's snow in the Gardens and bored heroes in the hallway. Why not burn a little energy outside?
1. Default Chapter

  
Square owns Final Fantasy. Square owns the video game RPG world!! YEAAAHH!!!   


It was a quiet afternoon in Balamb Gardens. The heroes were all gathered together in the second-floor hall, some sitting on the handrail, some leaning against the walls. It was a day off, in honor of the Christmas season. Not that anyone was a student anymore.   
Zell was rabbit-punching an imaginary target. His eyes narrowed in concentration as he moved nimbly from positions, his giant-sized jeans not hindering his combat dance. Irvine was stading bare-headed, his wavy hair a mess, looking a mite annoyed. This was probably because Selphie was holding his beloved hat over the waterway, and threatening to drop it in. She giggled and tossed the brown hair that was beginning to reach her shoulders. Selphie had always wanted to grow it out. And now she could! Quistis leaned against the wall, watching them. The woman smiled and watched Zell trip and slide across the floor, bumping into Selphie and nearly knocking her over. The next part happened in slow-motion.   
Selphie lost her balance.   
Her arm flew with her hand clutching the hat, and her hand was over the rail...   
Irvine's face registered horror.   
He caught her just before it was too late. "Whew," Selphie laughed, "That was close!"   
"No kidding," Irvine agreed, grinning. "My hat was almost a goner!"   
"Your....hat?" Selpie glowered at him. He shrugged. That was it. With one swift motion, Selphie threw the hat over the rail and watched it drift out of her field of view. As he yelled and and as his jaw hit the floor, his girlfriend saw an oppertunity for a lecture. "You better learn to appreciate me, Irvine Kinneas! Not every girl would put up with you and your..your...HAT OBSESSION!" She sniffled and turned to run, and this would have worked had she not run headlong into Squall.   
"What's her problem?" Squall asked as Selphie shoved past him and out of the hallway. Zell stood up from where he had been sitting.   
"Hi Squall. Where've you been?"   
"It's snowing!" Squall actually smiled at them.   
"Really? It hasn't snowed at Balamb in.. years!" Quistis shoved off the wall with her hands and adjusted her belt. Since she had stopped wearing the whip, the belt seemed useless and uncomfortable. But she was so used to wearing it that she did anyway.   
"I remember seeing it here once... Anyway, we're thinking about taking a drive to Balamb.You know, see the city in the snow." Squall shrugged, indicating that if anyone wanted to come, they could. It was still difficult for him to be close with these people, even if they were practically family.   
"All right." Quistis nodded. Zell jumped up and down, excited to be Going Somewhere for a change. Irvine was still pouting over the loss of his dear hat.   
"You guys go. I'd freeze without anything on my head anyway."   
"Yeah man! You've got major hat hair!" Zell giggled to himself and ran to his room to put on a black jacket.   
"Mis-ter Kinneas." Someone said. Irvine turned around to see a faceless hall moniter holding a sopping wet hat with two fingers. "Instructor Bains pulled this out of the water, and I believe it is yours?" 


	2. Silken Magic

  
Same disclaimer as before ^_^. By the way, I should be using my game as a reference here...I forgot what GFs were Junctioned to whom, and maybe it's wrong here, I dunno...I really should check....hm. And if you're wondering why they can be out on their own...they just CAN, ok?? ^____^   


"Think fast!" Squall barely had time to duck as a snowball whizzed over his head. It harmlessly landed in the snow a few feet away. Squall straightened up and glared at Zell, who had thrown it. He was getting ready to give the kid a severe talking-to when something sloshed against his back. He whirled around to see Rinoa standing there with her hands behind hr back, smiling sweetly at him.   
"Sorry Squall! Couldn't help it!" Rinoa laughed as he advanced toward her, not speaking, the slightest of smiles tickling his mouth.She ran in the opposite direction, and Squall gave chase, still walking, not smiling. Finally Rinoa let him catch her. She was rewarded with a handful of snow on her right cheek.   
Irvine looked longingly towards the Garden. They were outside the place, after hitting a moniter with a slush ball and being sent outside the courtyard. Selphie had not come with them. Irvine was missing her, but she couldn't know that. No one could! What would they think of him, the loner, the marksman! He remembered what he had told them all that day on the train. That a gunner must be ever alone and take pleasure in solitude, that his entire heart must go into his bullets so they hit home. Irvine looked at his past self, chided the fool, and went back to packing snowballs.   
Rinoa had released Shiva, and the Ice Guardian Force was milling around the deeper snowdrifts. No one had even considered asking her to join their snowball fight. Rinoa watched her and wondered. "Squall?"   
"Yeah?" He was walking beside her, wondering if he should be holding her arm or something.   
"Do you think GFs feel the need to be a part of their human's lives? I mean, do you ever talk to Quezacotl?"   
"Quez?" He sounded suprised. "He can't talk."   
"I know... I mean, do you ever talk to him anyway? Just so someone will listen?" She sighed and watched Shiva rolling a snowball around in her hands. "I wonder if I should --" Rinoa cut off her words and halted in her tracks. Shiva was gone!   
"What's the matter?" Squall's eyes searched her face. He looked over her shoulder and saw that the GF was gone.   
"Shiva? Shiva?!" Rinoa darted around frantically. Zell stopped making a snowman and joined the two, and Quistis stopped making her snow angel. Irvine came over and frowned.   
"Guardian Forces aren't supposed to take off like that are they? Something's wrong." The marksman said with narrowed eyes.   
"Maybe, maybe not. Did you see which way she went, Rinoa?"   
"No..."   
"Wait a minute!" Zell hurried to a spot a few feet away, by where Shiva was sitting. "There's something here, but I can't sense it too well." He glanced around in confusion. Quistis joined him a minute later.   
"It's not Blue Magic, or anything like that. It's faint...," Quistis said, looking to Rinoa.   
"I...well, it feels like threads in the air. Like the magic I know, but it's strange, somehow." Rinoa felt around in the air with her hands, almost physically feeling coarse, rough strings. "I think I can follow it."   
"Which way does it lead?" Squall asked her, wishing he had his Gunblade. Rinoa looked at him and pointed away, to the west.   
"Then that's the way we'll go."   


They had been trudging through the snow for a while now, Rinoa at the lead, her bare hands tracing the invisable threads of raw magic. Squall looked at her hands. They were red and turning an off-white near the fingertips. Abruptly he grabbed her right hand. She looked up at him in suprise, (was he being affectionate?). No, he was squeezing her fingers one by one.   
"Does this hurt?" He asked, squeezing her pinky, hard.   
"No..." Rinoa continued to walk, following the magic. Everyone else was following along behind.   
"We need to stop then," Squall said gravely. He dropped her hand and removed one of his gloves. He slipped it on to her hand. He did the same with the other glove and her other hand. The gloves were much too large, but they would stop her frostbite.   
"Thanks... but I can't feel the magic very well through the gloves. We'll get lost." Saying this, Rinoa looked around. Nothing seemed familiar. They should be able to see Balamb from here, or at least the Fire Cavern. But there was nothing.   
"Quistis? Do you know where we are?"   
"We've been walking due west from Balamb Gardens for about an hour. We should be hitting the ocean by now." Quistis shrugged in her cinnamon-red jacket. "I really have no idea where we are." She looked around the bleak landscape. Nothing but snow, and a few trees here and there. They hadn't run into any monsters, except for a Wendigo about twenty minutes ago. Hardly anyone had their weapons. Irvine had his gun, of course, and Quistis had grabbed her whip on impulse. They had their GFs and magic, and that was about it. Enough to take care of monsters for sure. But what if something more sinister was at hand? This did not seem at all like their island.. where was the ocean? Quistis had been checking her compass as they walked, and they had never wavered from a western direction.   
Zell had been watching. He jogged up to his former instructor, now his friend. "Quisits?" He asked, his words accented by the howl of an Ochu in the distance.   
"Yes, Zell?"   
"Where the hell are we?" 


End file.
